As with Pride and Prejudice, I have owned a copy of this film for about eight years, and I almost find it impossible to think that anyone could criticise it.
A lot of people criticise the decision to cast Emma Thompson, then thirty-six, as nineteen year old Elinor, but I feel that the fact that she is clearly older than her character should be adds to Elinor's role as the logical, practical woman surrounded by a sister who wants to be a pirate, a fully-paid up romantic (Kate Winslet as Marianne) and a mother who doesn't appreciate the starkness of their newly-impoverished status quite as fully as she does. I always feel that - in this version at least - Elinor is forced to act older than she is to compensate for all this idealism.
Another outstanding feature of the film is the quality of acting provided by the supporting cast. Imelda Staunton begins as an unbearably screechy woman and yet by the end of the film we see that she is more than capable of appreciating the gravity of a serious situation. Hugh Laurie as her husband Mr. Palmer is priceless (watch out for a scene where he is reading a copy of the newspaper The Porcupine). Greg Wise as Willoughby is incredibly convincing as the embodiment of Marianne's romantic hero who turns out to have a less than spotless reputation. Alan Rickman, who truly loves Marianne, is quite restrained enough and it soon becomes clear why he is so brooding.
Personally I don't have a problem with the fact that it might not be totally faithful to eighteenth century life in terms of hygiene and cleanliness because - to me - that isn't what Jane Austen is about. It is supposed to be genteel and this film is. She didn't write to depict realism, she wrote to satirise and observe the society she lived in, and this is something the film never fails to do. If the girls remained as rich as they had in the beginning, I don't think we would have cared for them quite as much as we do. It is very much a handicap to their eligibility.
On a final note, one really strong point is the costumes. They all seem to embody the period so well, and very accurately, too. Mrs. Jennings (being around sixty) wears clothes from an earlier period, and Mrs. Dashwood's clothes are not quite up to the minute, which adds another touch of realism to this outstanding film.
A lot of people criticise the decision to cast Emma Thompson, then thirty-six, as nineteen year old Elinor, but I feel that the fact that she is clearly older than her character should be adds to Elinor's role as the logical, practical woman surrounded by a sister who wants to be a pirate, a fully-paid up romantic (Kate Winslet as Marianne) and a mother who doesn't appreciate the starkness of their newly-impoverished status quite as fully as she does. I always feel that - in this version at least - Elinor is forced to act older than she is to compensate for all this idealism.
Another outstanding feature of the film is the quality of acting provided by the supporting cast. Imelda Staunton begins as an unbearably screechy woman and yet by the end of the film we see that she is more than capable of appreciating the gravity of a serious situation. Hugh Laurie as her husband Mr. Palmer is priceless (watch out for a scene where he is reading a copy of the newspaper The Porcupine). Greg Wise as Willoughby is incredibly convincing as the embodiment of Marianne's romantic hero who turns out to have a less than spotless reputation. Alan Rickman, who truly loves Marianne, is quite restrained enough and it soon becomes clear why he is so brooding.
Personally I don't have a problem with the fact that it might not be totally faithful to eighteenth century life in terms of hygiene and cleanliness because - to me - that isn't what Jane Austen is about. It is supposed to be genteel and this film is. She didn't write to depict realism, she wrote to satirise and observe the society she lived in, and this is something the film never fails to do. If the girls remained as rich as they had in the beginning, I don't think we would have cared for them quite as much as we do. It is very much a handicap to their eligibility.
On a final note, one really strong point is the costumes. They all seem to embody the period so well, and very accurately, too. Mrs. Jennings (being around sixty) wears clothes from an earlier period, and Mrs. Dashwood's clothes are not quite up to the minute, which adds another touch of realism to this outstanding film.